Bell Witch Revelations and Rumors

Nearly two centuries have passed since the events surrounding the Bell Witch, and countless legends have developed in the years since.

Some theories attempt to explain the haunting. Others add new stories to the original accounts or reinterpret events according to modern ideas about paranormal phenomena.

It would be nearly impossible to collect every rumor associated with the Bell Witch, and even more difficult to locate enough historical information to evaluate each one.

Several stories, however, have become particularly widespread.

The Theory About John and Betsy Bell

One of the most disturbing modern explanations for the Bell Witch haunting concerns the relationship between John Bell and his daughter Betsy.

The theory alleges that John sexually abused Betsy.

This interpretation gained popularity during the 1970s, when researchers increasingly associated adolescent children with reported poltergeist phenomena. Somehow, speculation about Betsy’s adolescence and the activity surrounding her eventually developed into the accusation that her father was abusing her.

According to this interpretation, the supernatural activity represented Betsy’s psychological response to the abuse. The theory goes still further by suggesting that Lucy Bell, rather than the spirit, was responsible for John’s eventual death.

There are considerable problems with this interpretation when it is compared with the traditional accounts.

The Spirit Attacked Betsy

Perhaps the most obvious difficulty is that the entity itself reportedly attacked Betsy.

Those attacks were not entirely random. They frequently occurred when Betsy attempted to speak with Joshua Gardner, the young man she intended to marry.

The sexual-abuse theory was eventually incorporated into a feature film based upon the Bell Witch events.

But applying this interpretation requires dismissing or substantially reinterpreting many of the details that made the original case so unusual.

There is also nothing within the traditional story indicating that the entity accused John Bell of sexually abusing his daughter.

That absence is particularly striking considering how readily the spirit supposedly exposed the secrets of other people.

Privacy in the Bell Household

The circumstances inside the Bell home also deserve consideration.

There were seven children in the household.

This was an era before television, video games, or electronic entertainment. Family members spent considerably more time together, and the Bell household also included servants and received a continual stream of visitors.

The Bells had two daughters.

Under those circumstances, privacy would have been difficult to obtain.

More importantly, despite the entity’s supposed habit of exposing people’s secrets and humiliating members of the community, no accusation of sexual abuse involving John and Betsy appears in the traditional accounts.

If such abuse had been occurring, the Bell Witch would seemingly have possessed the perfect opportunity to reveal it.

The entity supposedly despised John Bell.

It insulted him, tormented him, interfered with his life, and was eventually blamed for his death.

Yet on this particular subject, the spirit said nothing.

Nor did it ever provide a satisfactory explanation for why Betsy should not marry Joshua Gardner.

William Porter and the Bell Witch

Another unusual story concerns William Porter, a neighbor of the Bell family who was described as a respectable bachelor.

According to the account, Porter was attempting to sleep one night when the spirit entered his house.

Something crawled beneath his bed.

Rather than fleeing from it, Porter decided to fight back.

He grabbed the mysterious being with a sheet and held tightly to it. Porter intended to carry the creature to the fireplace and throw it into the flames.

Then an overpowering odor filled the room.

The smell became so unbearable that Porter was forced to cover his face.

The moment he released his grip, the witch escaped.

Richard Powell’s “Diary”

Another persistent rumor concerns Richard Powell.

Powell did not leave behind the revealing personal diary sometimes attributed to him.

He did possess a ciphering book, but its contents were considerably less dramatic.

The book contained some genealogical information, along with mathematical problems. It did not contain the kind of extraordinary revelations sometimes associated with Powell and the Bell Witch.

The Native American Burial Ground

Another explanation sometimes offered for the Bell Witch haunting involves a supposed Native American burial ground.

According to this theory, the Bell property or the surrounding area was disturbed because it had been constructed upon sacred or burial land.

There were, however, no known Native American burial grounds around Adams, Tennessee connected with the story.

The burial-ground explanation belongs to later attempts to provide the haunting with an origin.

The Bell Witch Cave

The famous Bell Witch Cave also occupies a much larger position in modern versions of the story than it did in the older tradition.

Its association with the haunting appears to have developed from a little-known and undocumented incident involving one of Betsy’s friends.

According to that story, the Bell Witch helped the girl out of the cave.

From this relatively minor episode developed the much stronger modern association between the cave and the Bell Witch legend.

More Stories About Richard Powell

The stories surrounding Richard Powell’s interest in occult subjects were not limited to accounts involving John and Calvin Johnson.

Powell’s students also became sources for some of the rumors.

Several reportedly claimed that Powell sometimes spoke to himself in an unknown language when he believed he was alone.

Another story concerned students who returned to the school after everyone else had left because they had forgotten something in the classroom.

They unexpectedly encountered their teacher.

Powell had lit candles.

He was speaking from a strange book.

The accounts were never formally documented, but they became another element in the strange collection of stories surrounding Powell.

Did the Bells Blame Kate Batts?

One of the most enduring explanations for the Bell Witch identifies the spirit with Kate Batts.

The Bell family themselves, however, did not believe Kate Batts was responsible for their troubles.

Nor did they apparently regard whatever conflict existed between Batts and John Bell as the explanation for the haunting.

The identification of the entity with Kate Batts became part of the legend, but it should not automatically be treated as the Bell family’s own explanation.

Why Did Something Happen to the Bells?

Much of the folklore surrounding the Bell family appears to reflect a very human desire to explain terrible events.

If something horrible happened to John Bell and his family, people naturally search for a reason.

Perhaps John cheated someone.

Perhaps he angered Kate Batts.

Perhaps the family disturbed a burial ground.

Perhaps someone committed a secret crime.

Perhaps there was something hidden within the family itself.

All of these explanations attempt to answer the same fundamental question:

Why them?

But sometimes terrible things happen without providing a satisfying reason.

Whatever occurred in the Bell household, the surviving story does not require John Bell to have committed some terrible act deserving of supernatural punishment.

Did Andrew Jackson Visit the Bell Family?

Another famous part of Bell Witch lore involves Andrew Jackson.

According to the traditional account, Jackson visited the Bell property and personally encountered the mysterious entity.

Some modern sources have challenged the story and argued that the visit never occurred.

However, the traditional account included several people who claimed to have witnessed Jackson’s visit.

The disagreement illustrates one of the persistent difficulties in studying the Bell Witch.

The events were transmitted through recollection, family history, community tradition, and later publication.

Determining where history ends and folklore begins is not always simple.

M. V. Ingram and the Bell Witch Accounts

Much of the later Bell Witch tradition became associated with M. V. Ingram.

Ingram based his book upon interviews with more than 43 people in Robertson County during the nineteenth century.

Many of those people were old enough to possess firsthand information about the people and events associated with the story.

That does not automatically establish that every supernatural claim was true.

It does, however, make the origins of the surviving accounts more complicated than simply dismissing the entire story as a modern invention.

Revelations, Rumors, and the Bell Witch

The Bell Witch story has survived for approximately two centuries because it has never remained static.

Every generation has interpreted it differently.

Old stories acquired new explanations.

Minor details became major pieces of the legend.

Historical people became suspects.

Locations acquired supernatural importance.

And modern theories were sometimes projected backward onto people who lived generations before those theories existed.

Separating those layers is difficult.

But doing so reveals something important.

The original mystery is often stranger than the explanations created to solve it.

Whatever happened to the Bell family, generations of retelling have surrounded the events with an enormous body of rumor.

Some of those stories may contain fragments of truth.

Others may simply demonstrate what happens when people spend two hundred years trying to explain something that was never satisfactorily explained in the first place.

About the Author

Laura Wright

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